Bin Laden deputy attacks West over cartoon insults

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, criticised the West for its insult to Islam’s prophet and called for continued holy war to reclaim Palestinian lands, in a video broadcast on Al-Jazeera today.

Osama bin Laden’s deputy also expressed support for Hamas, the militant Islamic group that swept Palestinian parliamentary elections in January, and its refusal to recognise Israel.

Referring to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have been printed in a number of European newspapers, al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, said: “They did it on purpose and they continue to do it without apologising, even though no one dares to harm Jews or to challenge Jewish claims about the Holocaust nor even to insult homosexuals.”

It was the second al-Zawahri videotape aired by Al-Jazeera in six weeks. An official at the network would not say how the network received the latest tape.

Al-Zawahri, bearded and wearing a black turban and seated in front of a curtained window, spoke insistently and waved his right hand to emphasise his words.

“The insults against Prophet Muhammad are not the result of freedom of opinion but because what is sacred has changed in this culture,” he said. “The Prophet Mohammed, prayers be upon him, and Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, are not sacred anymore, while Semites and the Holocaust and homosexuality have become sacred.”

He complained about the double standards of laws that punish those who challenge the Holocaust but bar Muslim girls from covering their hair in school, as in France.

“In France a Muslim father cannot prevent his daughter from having sex because she is protected by the law but this same law punishes her if she covers her hair,” he said.

He said the West repeatedly insulted Muslims and their holy book, the Koran.

“In the eyes of the West, they have the right to occupy our land, rob our wealth and then insult us and our religion, and humiliate our Koran and our prophet, prayers be upon him,” al-Zawahri said. “After that they give us lessons in freedom, justice and human rights.”

Speaking of Palestine and Iraq, al-Zawahri said: “We have to be aware of the American game called ’political process.’ “

He agreed with Hamas’ refusal to accept Israel or renounce its violent ideology and rejected US President George W Bush’s State of the Union message that the group would lose funding if it did not reform.

“There were declarations about respecting the signed agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel,” he said. “That means accepting Oslo and Madrid and the road map agreements and the other surrendering agreements. This is a dangerous deal which should be dropped immediately.”

In place of negotiations, he said, was “the path of prophets and messengers, which is … jihad, until the soil will be liberated and the Islamic states rise again”.

“I would like to tell my brothers in Palestine that reaching power is needed to implement Islamic rule,” he said.

Al-Zawahri complained that the previous Palestinian leaderships had “sold Palestine” through peace agreements in Oslo and Madrid and the US-backed road map peace plan.

“No one has the right, whether a Palestinian or not, to abandon a grain of soil from Palestine which was a Muslim land that was occupied by infidels. It is the duty of every Muslim to work on getting it back,” he said.

Al-Zawahri has issued several video and audiotapes in the past year. His last video came on January 31, in which he threatened a new attack against the US.

Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are believed to be in hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan border.